Very poor communication from Absa resulted in paying full interest on credit card

I have been with absa for 23 years since 1996 and I have always appreciated the good service I've received from them and the excellent interest rates. But my experience these past 2 weeks left me wondering if this is the bank I should stay with.

I'm currently on a Premium account and have my cheque account, credit card and home loan with Absa. Last month I asked Absa if I could move my credit card payment date to pay the full outstanding amount from the 28th of the month to the beginning of the month as I have a new job that pays on the 1st of the month rather than the 25th of the month. The agent on the phone said this would be fine and organised the date change.

At the beginning of this month, I received a statement and I saw that I was charged a huge amount of interest even though I paid the full outstanding amount on the new date. I phoned Absa today and the agent said that I should have paid the full amount at the end of the month to avoid the interest penalty and was very rude on the phone when I said that at I was not informed by the previous agent that there would be an interest penalty for moving the payment date. The previous agent that organised the date change did not warn me to pay the outstanding amount before the new date. She actually informed me that the full amount will still go off at the end of the month as it was only 2 days to go until the full amount should be paid. So I assumed there was nothing more I needed to do.

This is not the service I expect from Absa ... after more than 2 decades of being a loyal client. If they don't at least refund the interest I lost, even though I paid the full amount on the new payable date, I will definitely start looking at a more customer focussed bank.

David